Remember Advanced Lawnmower Simulator? You should if you read this blog, after all there are already two games dedicated to it in this years competition. Not only that, in my post about the origins of CSSCGC I also discuss this game is a sort of Crap Game Dracula, the one that all other crap games spawned from. But do you know what really catches my eye right now, as I read the tile of that game?
It's the word "Advanced". That's a good word, a strong word. I mean, once you have an "Advanced" Lawnmower Simulator out in the wild, how can it be topped? It has already achieved the pinnacle of what is possible. Anything more advanced would have to be called Advanced Advanced Lawnmower Simulator or Even more Advanced than before Lawnmower Simulator.
Of course, the conceit here is in my acceptance that the original is Advanced. Is a name by any other rose still as sweet? What I mean is, could the original game be improved upon? Could some crazy bastard lovingly lavish hours of attention on a makeover for the game? Creating a balanced product that is faithful to the original, but that extends the concept with modern references?
Well, that is exactly what Jim has attempted to do with ALS2023. And has he pulled it off? Read on dear reader, read on...
Just kidding. Chortle. Chortle.
In Jim's own words...
Rich Pelley, formerly of Your Sinclair and now of the Grauniad, is writing a deep-dive article on the history of crap games on the Spectrum. I'm going to be heavily featured.
"Hey, I've got a great idea!" says Rich. "Why don't we make a 2023 update of Advanced Lawnmower Simulator and re-submit it for the CSSCGC?" There was one slight hitch: he has never programmed a Spectrum in his life, beyond typing LOAD "" and ENTER. Which means that the programming was left to me. His idea was to just flip the screen so that the house and sun were on opposite sides and the mower runs left to right.
I managed to do this in ten minutes. Only four lines of Duncan MacDonald's original program had to be changed.
"Maybe we could add a couple of extra lawnmowers... add a few more things yourself," says Rich.
I needed no more encouragement. What I've ended up making is... quite enhanced, but still recognisably a descendant of the original, in the same way as a Next is a descendant of the 48K Spectrum - it's just had to go through several iterations to get there. Duncan MacDonald died in late 2020, so in his honour I wanted to make sure there was still enough of his code left that everyone believes it's the same game. And to prove my point, I've included all the development .BAS files from 0.0 (Duncan's original listing), via 0.1 (everything is mirrored but no other changes) to 0.10 (the last version before all the machine code and UDG data was ripped out of the BASIC listing to build the tape version).
There's a vastly updated mower menu, with each mower given two-thirds of a page of description (to fit it in under the big ALS2023 logo). The house is sort-of-3D and has sprouted some 21st Century solar panels. More than one mower is working... but not all of those that are working are guaranteed to finish the job, and only one of them will earn the coveted CORNED BEEF SANDWICH, which is more valuable than a tenner, a bendy Bully or a visit to Vidal Sassoon's salon. Investigate each mower
until you've seen everything.
There's a few machine code sound effects, one of which was a quick and dirty job by John Connolly, but would have taken me the rest of this year to finish. And, as ever, there's a microdrive version as well, because, why not?
All this and I've never owned an actual lawnmower. I've never had a lawn to mow...
Also, I actually made myself a corned beef sandwich when I'd finished
this one.
Back to my review
Well, I played this game and found there are many little Easter eggs to be found. Which is fitting, as this is Easter. The first mower I picked I discovered Jim has put a keyboard de-bounce on the M key so I had to let go of M in order to mow. This was almost as bad as that time Ed Toovey made us type 'mow' 100 times for no good reason. As I sat mindlessly releasing the M key, I imagined Jim coding this into the game, rather amused with himself. Maybe he said something like
'Chortle, chortle'
All the while tucking into his corned beef sandwich. I have to admit, I was amused too. It was enough to spur me on to mow yet more lawns. As I did, I found with great surprise that Jim has created all his mowers with different characteristics, different handling, different sound effects.
And this is where the role of the reviewer gets hard, because I want you to try it for yourself and discover the game as I did. I feel that if I share too much it will spoil the experience. So, I am saying play this game, give it a go - you won't be sorry.
Note the solar panels. And also references to Gretta Thunberg. Is there a subtle environmental message in this game? But a sort of climate change denial message.
For example, the heavily polluting mower causes rain, and protects the grass
Where as the environmental option somehow causes a sort of apocalyptic cutscene.
Whatever the politics of the game, its a well crafted and solidly made entry. There are surprisingly high quality animations, considered sound effects, humor and a level of care and competence that is rarely seen in these parts. I will include Jim's full file set in the download so you can look through his logs and code if you wish.
Final thoughts
Jim has crafted a love letter to grass, to mowers, to the destruction of our planet. But, also to the Crap Game comp throughout the ages, to Your Sinclair, to the original ALS and, perhaps too, to Rich Pelley himself.
The only real negative is the games insinuation that burning fossil fuel is somehow saving the planet. You need to read the guardian a bit more, Jim lad. Anyway, I'm off to march on the capital! If you see me glued to a road, vegan-corned-beef flatbread in hand, please don't mow me down.
Now, "GO GET THAT GRASS":
I've now spent more time virtually mowing my grass than mowing the actual grass that needs mowing.
ReplyDelete